Belatedly, Biblical Studies Carnival 162

THE AMATEUR EXEGETE: Biblical Studies Carnival 163 (August 2019).

Also, a related post by Phil Long, organizer of the carnival, at Reading Acts: Biblical Studies Carnival for August 2019.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Many Recensions of the Ten Commandments?

PROF. SIDNIE WHITE CRAWFORD: The Many Recensions of the Ten Commandments (TheTorah.com).

Beyond the two version of the Decalogue in Exodus and Deuteronomy, and the usual differences between MT, SP, and LXX, in Second Temple times, liturgical texts in Qumran (4QDeutⁿ) and Egypt (Nash Papyrus), Greek references in the New Testament and Philo, and even tefillin parchments, reflect slightly different recensions of the text.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

More on Stone, Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism

IN THE MAIL FROM OUP:

Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism

Michael E. Stone

• Greatly enriches our understanding of the religious dynamic of this period
• Analyzes the Essenes and other contemporary groups as a secret society

Were there groups in Ancient Judaism that cultivated esoteric knowledge and transmitted it secretly? With the discovery and burgeoning study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and particularly of the documents legislating the social structure of the Qumran group, the foremost paradigm for analysis of the group's social structure has become the "sect." This is still dominant, having replacing the monastic paradigm used by some of the earliest scholars of the Scrolls.

But after studying what has been written on secret societies more generally, Michael Stone has concluded that many known ancient Jewish groupsthe Qumran covenanters, Josephus's and Philo's Essenes, and Philo's Therapeutaeshould be viewed as societies at the heart of whose existence were esoteric knowledge and practice. Guarding and transmitting this esoteric knowledge and practice, Stone argues, provided the dynamic that motivated the social and conceptual structure of these groups. Analyzing them as secret societies, he says, enables us to see previously latent social structural dimensions, and provides many new enriching insights into the groups, including the Dead Sea covenanters.

By examining historical and literary sources, Stone uncovers evidence for the existence of other secret groups in ancient Jewish society. This line of study leads Stone not only to consider the "classical" Jewish apocalypses as pseudo-esoteric, but also to discern in them the footsteps of hidden, truly esoteric traditions cultivated in the circles that produced the apocalypses. This discovery has significant implications, especially considering the enormous growth of study of the apocalyptic in the Judaism of the Second Temple period and in nascent Christianity over the last seventy years.

I am one of the reviewers of this book for the Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity Group at the upcoming annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego, California.

Past posts on the book are here and here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

The Temple on Mount Gerizim

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: The Temple on Mount Gerizim—In the Bible and Archaeology. Worship at Ancient Temples (Megan Sauter). As usual, this is a summary on an article, this one by Anne Katrine de Hemmer in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review: "Reactivating Remembrance: Interactive Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim." The full article is behind the subscription wall.

A couple of related posts are here and here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Review of Walsh, The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: David Walsh, The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity. Development, Decline and Demise ca. A.D. 270-430. Late Antique Archaeology (Supplementary Series), volume 2. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xii, 146. ISBN 9789004380806. €121 (pb). ISBN 9789004383067. ebook. Reviewed by Matthew M. McCarty, University of British Columbia (matthew.mccarty@ubc.ca).

Ultimately, though, whether Walsh’s boldest arguments will hold true as excavations publish their data may matter less than the way that Walsh successfully re-frames the questions surrounding the end of Mithras-worship.

I noted the publication of the book here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Was Emmaus at Kiriath Yearim?

ARCHAEOLOGY: Israeli Archaeologists May Have Found Emmaus, Where Jesus Appeared After Crucifixion (Ariel David, Haaretz premium).

Archaeologists have uncovered the massive walls of a 2,200-year-old Hellenistic fortification that may have been built by the Seleucid general who defeated Judah the Maccabee, the famed Jewish leader at the center of the Hanukkah story. In an unexpected twist, the discovery could also help identify the location of the biblical town of Emmaus, where the Gospels say Jesus made his first appearance after being crucified and resurrected.

[...]

But just to keep things interesting, there may have been more than one ancient town named Emmaus.

For more on the excavation at Kiriath Yearim (Kiriath Jearim), see here and links. And for more on the excavation at the site of Motza (mentioned in the article as another contender for the site of Emmaus), see here and here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Psalmen und Chronik (ed. Hartenstein and Willi)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Psalmen und Chronik. Hrsg. v. Friedhelm Hartenstein u. Thomas Willi. [Psalms and Chronicles.] 2019. XXII, 434 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 107. 99,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-154010-3.

Published in German.
The Books of Psalms and Chronicles open and close the ketubim in the TENAK. They share some significant mutual linguistic and thematic threads, which demonstrate their cognate character in the Second Temple literature. This becomes even more obvious if one looks at both works as a special example of the relationship of poetics and prose in ancient Jewish tradition. Finally, it is important to note how the presentation of history in Chronicles uses Psalms (from the theocratic books 4 and 5) as interpreting doxologies while conversely certain Psalms show concepts of history comparable to 1–2Chr. This volume contains the contributions of an international conference held at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich where for the first time renowned scholars discussed aspects of the relationship between Psalms and Chronicles fundamentally and in detail.

The essays are in German and English.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Isaac Luria knew things

KABBALAH WATCH: REPORTS OF MIRACLES FROM SAFED. How the great kabbalist Isaac Luria changed the perception of the world without changing the world itself (Eli Yassif, Tablet Magazine).

To be somewhat less cautious than Leon was, I would say not that most of the original legends about Luria involve his knowledge or recognition of something but that they are all of this sort. Not a single legend told about Luria during his sojourn in Safed (or the fifty years around 1600 that this book is concentrated on; I am not speaking here about legends fashioned centuries later) recounts a miraculous deed. There are no stories of sick people lining up in front of his door so that he could cure them, or stories of threats to the Safed Jewish community that he averted or undid.

The essay also touches on ancient Jewish mysticism and magic here and there.

For past posts on Isaac Luria (Ha'ARI) and Lurianic Kabbalah, see here and links.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Reviving ancient fragrances?

ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE, AROMATICS EDITION: Israeli farmer remixes ancient scents near Dead Sea (Michael Blum, AFP). It's not certain that Mr. Erlich has the right ancient plants, but an expert thinks he probably does.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Was there a Dead Sea Scrolls conspiracy?

SPOILER: NO. Religious questions: Was there a Dead Sea Scrolls conspiracy? (Wyatt Massey, Times Free Press).

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.